My Florida Home Builder

Caring for your lawn grass is very important and particularly special if your home have a large lawn or shows it frontly.Know how to keep healthy and beautiful without spending much.

Caring for your lawn grass is very important and particularity special if your home have a large lawn or shows it frontly.Know how to keep healthy and beautiful without spending much. Humidity and dryness, inadequate caring, or bad advice treatment could deliver your lawn grass to very poor conditions. Let’s see how to improve it. The Right Grass for Your Lawn. What kind of climate do you have on your area? Warm, hot, cool, cold, dry,wet. And sunlight hours? What about the uses you are giving to the lawn grass area. Just a lightly stepping or heavy traffic. Many of these answer will determinate what kind of grass you may grow on your lawn. Other factors to have in mind are time you are able to devote to your lawn care, money you are able to spend and special required tools that your lawn care may need. First a little search about the soil, the basic ingredient of your lawn along with water. Know your soil and you will discover the suitable type of grasses for your lawn. Acidity or alkaline soil are very different and need treatment and grass according to their possibilities. A landscaper or a service provided by a gardener can come in, take a sample of your soil and let you know what kind of soil is and then, advice you how to treat it and what kind of seed are more appropriated. Grass will be welcomed by the lawn soil as long as it may match the soil type, the climate variation, the rate of humidity and the hours of sun needed for that grass. To begin your search you can search a little on the net, visit gardener shop and even talk with the people who live next to you and have a healthy lawn grass.All the people involved on gardener shops and greenhands enthusiastic can lend you a great help on your search.

Tips You Have To know About Growing Grass

Raking: clean the dead leaves and help to refrain thatch to accumulate too much. Mowing: when you mow, mow high. Thus, grass will be more green, healthy and strong, and contrary to what is believed, will grow slower. Pulling weeds: Weed have deep roots and like to steal the nutrients from you grass. Pull the weed and eventually spray them with a light pesticide.

Some Types of Grass And How To Grow Them

The lawn is a type of grass, maybe it is surprising to you it but exist in the world a thousand classes known. Not all of these are employed as lawn, as it must be able to withstand the usual cuts and form a dense carpet and a dense cover. Depending on the purpose for which plant is chose, you will employ one kind or another, although it is often mixing between different herbs to get satisfactory

PENNISETUM CLANDESTINUM High endurance to sun. It can stand long sun hours without suffering. BERMUDA - GRASS -CYNODON DACTYLON It reproduces vegetatively through trailing stems.Spreads very quickly throughout the land surface There are much more varieties that can be named and considered for you garden,one of them is the fescue, a very valuable grass, thick and rich, you can buy and grow fescue seed without effort. Ordinary tall fescue grass seeds require maintenance from over seeding, weed problems, and clumps. Blending varieties together that has top performance on some of the desired characteristics, allows the lawn to adapt itself to the conditions. We encourage to begin you research with all the above factors in mind and learn some new lessons about how to make your lawn useful, durable and beautiful

Growing your own herbs has many benefits. You’ll quickly learn just how great it is to grow your own herbs once you start reaping the rewards of your harvest. Most people who grow a few herbs never want to stop, and their herb gardens only seem to expand every year!

The immediate benefit of growing a herb garden is the money savings. Buying fresh herbs from a store is an ongoing expense, whereas planting your own herbs will allow you to harvest lots more herbs for your money and give you plenty of for your cooking.

For the price of a few tools (if you don’t already have them) and the cost of a packet of seeds (about $1 - $2), you’ll have all you need to grow a huge crop of herbs. By growing from seed, you’ll have fresh herbs for your recipes for months and months and be saving a substantial amount of money.

Your home garden is a great place to unwind and relieve stress, so growing herbs, like all forms of gardening, can help with this and have the added benefit of some beautiful aromatherapy.

Many herbs are very easy to grow. A lot of herbs will grow almost anywhere, and require very little maintenance. Herbs can be grown in almost any garden location, and even in containers where they can be moved around at will. The fact that herbs can easily be located almost anywhere makes them a very good subject for most gardeners.

You can also use herbs for their good looks, they’re attractive plants that can provide some nice accents to your garden. You can mass plant them along paths or around features in your garden to great effect and you still have the bonus of using them in your cooking as needed.

Your fresh herbs will come to the rescue of your family dinners, you’ll not hear the word “boring” from your kids again. Your meals will become the focal point of favorable comments and be looked forward to with relish.

Then there’s the extra nutritional value of fresh herbs. You now know how wonderful they make your meals taste, but did you know that many herbs contain minerals, vitamins and antioxidants vital to your health? So they don’t just taste good and look good, they’re also good for you!

If you should put your house up for sale in the future, your well cared for garden along with its mouth watering herb section will add value to your home. It can become a focal point to help in the successful sale of your property.

Very often the only way to taste the flavors of some exotic herbs is to grow your own. Your local grocery store is only likely to have the standard herbs at inflated prices and you won’t find some of the more unusual varieties. Sure you’ll find herbs like basil, mint or chives, but you won’t find fresh chervil, garlic chives or purple basil so easily.

Plus, growing herbs can also make you more popular. A lot of people really love fresh herbs, and if you neighbors hear you’re growing them, they might stop by and ask for some! Your friends and family will be delighted to be given fresh herbs as a gift, and they’ll be wanting to hang around you for more handouts as often as they can!

In opening, you got to know that gardening is not just like lotsof other activities. It’s an art that needs real likeness, attention, as well as zeal for plant life. If you’re serious about the subject, you have got to love plant life. Several individuals do not get concerned about gardening except when they want.

Before you go paying for things in the retail shops, take heed to this - it’s likely to get a wider range of gardening needs for more affordable asking price and less difficulty when you pay on the Internet. It’s really painless, convenient and more affordable. Just place orders for any gardening supply you want and it’ll be brought without delay to your house.

Planting at the correct season is advantageous for a flourishing gardening, particularly if you’re a newcomer. Further, as a novice gardener, ensure that you do exactly what the gardening publications tell you.

The top technique of getting fitting garden gloves is for you to wear them and make fists; it is necessary to mimic the normal gardening moves to certify that you feel comfortable while wearing them. Nagging pests may perhaps confuse a gardener who does not know how to contend with them.

Not those individuals who read distinctive gardening publications because such subscribers are in on methods of getting rid of pests. Any wonder why serious gardeners are learning from gardening publications? Hope it’s now known.

Most times, vegetables planted during the summer aren’t like those planted during the fall. More so, they give the vegetables a really unusual flavor. Beautifying your garden will surely make it much more attractive and the first of it’s kind; it’s a sensible way of giving it a unique touch, a kind of mark which identifies it as your own distinctive job.

There’re loads of flowers, fruits, vegetables, bushes along with trees that persons are surely not tuned in to yet; they’re truly beautiful and gardening literature are the doorway to a world of such plants that can invigorate your garden as well as make it the most desired in town.

On a concluding note, gardeners ought to realize that fine air supply is imperative; plants should not overcrowd one another because they need space to grow and plants ought to be positioned rightly so that they get plenty sunlight.

The first thing in garden making is the selection of a spot. Without a choice, it means simply doing the best one can with conditions. With space limited it resolves itself into no garden, or a box garden. Surely a box garden is better than nothing at all.

But we will now suppose that it is possible to really choose just the right site for the garden. What shall be chosen? The greatest determining factor is the sun. No one would have a north corner, unless it were absolutely forced upon him; because, while north corners do for ferns, certain wild flowers, and begonias, they are of little use as spots for a general garden.

If possible, choose the ideal spot a southern exposure. Here the sun lies warm all day long. When the garden is thus located the rows of vegetables and flowers should run north and south. Thus placed, the plants receive the sun’s rays all the morning on the eastern side, and all the afternoon on the western side. One ought not to have any lopsided plants with such an arrangement.

Suppose the garden faces southeast. In this case the western sun is out of the problem. In order to get the best distribution of sunlight run the rows northwest and southeast.

The idea is to get the most sunlight as evenly distributed as possible for the longest period of time. From the lopsided growth of window plants it is easy enough to see the effect on plants of poorly distributed light. So if you use a little diagram remembering that you wish the sun to shine part of the day on one side of the plants and part on the other, you can juggle out any situation. The southern exposure gives the ideal case because the sun gives half time nearly to each side. A northern exposure may mean an almost entire cut-off from sunlight; while northeastern and southwestern places always get uneven distribution of sun’s rays, no matter how carefully this is planned.

The garden, if possible, should be planned out on paper. The plan is a great help when the real planting time comes. It saves time and unnecessary buying of seed.

New garden spots are likely to be found in two conditions: they are covered either with turf or with rubbish. In large garden areas the ground is ploughed and the sod turned under; but in small gardens remove the sod. How to take off the sod in the best manner is the next question. Stake and line off the garden spot. The line gives an accurate and straight course to follow. Cut the edges with the spade all along the line. If the area is a small one, say four feet by eighteen or twenty, this is an easy matter. Such a narrow strip may be marked off like a checkerboard, the sod cut through with the spade, and easily removed. This could be done in two long strips cut lengthwise of the strip. When the turf is cut through, roll it right up like a roll of carpet.

But suppose the garden plot is large. Then divide this up into strips a foot wide and take off the sod as before. What shall be done with the sod? Do not throw it away for it is full of richness, although not quite in available form. So pack the sod grass side down one square on another. Leave it to rot and to weather. When rotted it makes a fine fertilizer. Such a pile of rotting vegetable matter is called a compost pile. All through the summer add any old green vegetable matter to this. In the fall put the autumn leaves on. A fine lot of goodness is being fixed for another season.

Even when the garden is large enough to plough, I would pick out the largest pieces of sod rather than have them turned under. Go over the ploughed space, pick out the pieces of sod, shake them well and pack them up in a compost heap.

Mere spading of the ground is not sufficient. The soil is still left in lumps. Always as one spades one should break up the big lumps. But even so the ground is in no shape for planting. Ground must be very fine indeed to plant in, because seeds can get very close indeed to fine particles of soil. But the large lumps leave large spaces which no tiny root hair can penetrate. A seed is left stranded in a perfect waste when planted in chunks of soil. A baby surrounded with great pieces of beefsteak would starve. A seed among large lumps of soil is in a similar situation. The spade never can do this work of pulverizing soil. But the rake can. That’s the value of the rake. It is a great lump breaker, but will not do for large lumps. If the soil still has large lumps in it take the hoe.

Many people handle the hoe awkwardly. The chief work of this implement is to rid the soil of weeds and stir up the top surface. It is used in summer to form that mulch of dust so valuable in retaining moisture in the soil. I often see people as if they were going to chop into atoms everything around. Hoeing should never be such vigorous exercise as that. Spading is vigorous, hard work, but not hoeing and raking.

After lumps are broken use the rake to make the bed fine and smooth. Now the great piece of work is done.

Landscaping Trees have always been incredibly popular for use in larger gardens where they can grow to maturity looking absolutely wonderful. When we take a look at our own residential gardens they are, more often than not, small places and our choice of landscaping trees and shrubs is therefore somewhat limited.

Choosing the most suitable garden trees for our small garden requires a little reading and learning. You should take a fair amount of care when choosing plants for your yard, when it comes to growing garden trees a little more care and attention is required to ensure they will grow well.

Generally it is best to pick garden trees that are not likely to grow beyond a height of around 20ft (6m) in height. If your are planning to place a tree or shrub near to your home then you should really pick even shorter problems with your house’s foundations. Furthermore the branches and twigs can grow to block windows or doorways. An even more horrible scenario would be if the Garden Trees were to grow such long branches that they could push against walls or overhanging roofs to such an amount that it caused structural damage.

When choosing where, in your small garden, you will be planting your Trees and Shrubs you will have to take special notice of the immediate area taking special note of any overhanging wires or anything else that encroaches upon the space in which your plant will eventually grow, recalling that you should allow for around 6m (20ft) in height.

Something else that you should always consider others, especially your neighbor. If you will be growing Garden Trees along a partitioning fence you will need to consider the fact that it is most likely that the branches will overhang into his/her space. You should always think about how and where the branches are likely to grow but you will also need to think about the roots which, potentially, can cause more problems as they will, unfortunately, often grow much further distances causing more serious damage.

Garden Trees grown in Small Gardens can often become a nuisance for a neighbor when the Garden Trees grow too big and block out the sun from his or her garden or window. This type of problem often leads to legal action between neighbors and many places have bye-laws which disallow the growing of certain species of tree. It is well worth checking first before you plant any Garden Trees.

Once you have chosen which Landscaping Trees you are going to plant in your garden you will be required learn a little about Tree Care and especially for the species of tree or shrub you are planting. It is crucially important that, in the case of grafted Landscaping Trees you watch carefully for small branches which may spring from under the graft point as these will be of a different type of tree or shrub (the same species as the rootstock) and, in the case of dwarf trees and shrubs, these will sometimes be much larger and longer than the main plant.

All pruning of your trees and shrubs should be carried out very carefully indeed and you should never, ever, under any circumstances at all, should you ever cut off the very top of a tree in order to keep them short enough for your garden unless you know exactly what you are doing. Lopping off the tops of trees and shrubs can leave them wide open to deadly infection and further damage. You should always, to the letter, follow the correct directions, especially when pruning small trees as they can often be more susceptible infection. All trees and shrubs look at their nicest when their shape appears natural, unless, of course, you are doing a spot of topiary.

Cleanliness and tidiness at home are very important, and you can remove your junk with the help of a junk removal agency. However, you may be quite unsure when is the best time to have your junk removed. It is really not a good idea to call a junk removal company when you have too little junk, but you should also bear in mind that an increase in the amount of junk will cost you higher removal fees. So, it is really necessary to determine a budget before you decide to have your junk removed. Selection of a good junk removal agency is also essential as rates of these agencies may differ substantially.

What are the things you can call a junk removal company to remove?

While deciding how much junk you should have before calling a junk removal agency, it is wise to find out the types of things that junk removal companies pick up and also the things that they don’t. Most junk removal companies do not pick up commercial and hazardous waste. The main types of waste that junk removal agencies pick up are as mentioned below:

Paint, Pesticides, Insecticides, Paint thinners and Strippers, Tires, Batteries, Antifreeze, Motor Oil, Oil Filters, Propane Tanks, Florescent Lights, Solvents, Fertilizers, Pool Chemicals, Oven and Drain Cleaners, Furniture and Metal Polish, Electronics, Monitors and Others.

When is the right time to call a junk removal company?

Cleaning the entire home in a day can be hectic and troublesome, so instead of removing a large amount of junk, it is best to remove it slowly. On the other hand, the cost of junk removal depends on the amount of junk you want to dispose. Therefore, it is indeed essential that you know exactly how much junk to remove at a time.

Usually, the charges for commercial junk and domestic junk removals can vary. If you live in a small house, it is wise to get junk removal service when you have a small amount of junk, as this is more affordable. There are different online space calculators which can be used to determine the right amount of junk to dispose. With these calculators, you will know exactly how much junk you should dispose to get the best possible rates.

Getting the best prices for junk removal

You may have doubts when it comes to the prices of junk removal services. There may be several different types of junk removal charges. For less junk, the junk removal service providers will typically charge lower rates. In case you have a lot of junk to remove, you may have to pay maximum charges. The exact charges can be determined by calling the junk removal service providers. After you are sure of the prices, then you can decide the amount of the junk you want to dispose. It is also important that you find out the prices and quality of services of different companies to ensure that you have the best deal possible.

The pricing for junk removal can also vary depending on the locality you are in. Some junk removal companies will provide the rates of their junk removal services according to zip codes. Special discounts are also available for those who take advantage of online junk removal booking facilities.

Calling the junk removal companies

Garbage removal service providers usually have toll free customer care helplines, and you can find the information you need by dialing these numbers. You can also call the customer care executives of different companies to have a better idea of the junk removal services offered by them. It is also a good idea to write e-mails to these companies as most of them will respond to your enquiry promptly.

A wild-flower garden has a most attractive sound. One thinks of long tramps in the woods, collecting material, and then of the fun in fixing up a real for sure wild garden.

Many people say they have no luck at all with such a garden. It is not a question of luck, but a question of understanding, for wild flowers are like people and each has its personality. What a plant has been accustomed to in Nature it desires always. In fact, when removed from its own sort of living conditions, it sickens and dies. That is enough to tell us that we should copy Nature herself. Suppose you are hunting wild flowers. As you choose certain flowers from the woods, notice the soil they are in, the place, conditions, the surroundings, and the neighbours.

Suppose you find dog-tooth violets and wind-flowers growing near together. Then place them so in your own new garden. Suppose you find a certain violet enjoying an open situation; then it should always have the same. You see the point, do you not? If you wish wild flowers to grow in a tame garden make them feel at home. Cheat them into almost believing that they are still in their native haunts.

Wild flowers ought to be transplanted after blossoming time is over. Take a trowel and a basket into the woods with you. As you take up a few, a columbine, or a hepatica, be sure to take with the roots some of the plant’s own soil, which must be packed about it when replanted.

The bed into which these plants are to go should be prepared carefully before this trip of yours. Surely you do not wish to bring those plants back to wait over a day or night before planting. They should go into new quarters at once. The bed needs soil from the woods, deep and rich and full of leaf mold. The under drainage system should be excellent. Then plants are not to go into water-logged ground. Some people think that all wood plants should have a soil saturated with water. But the woods themselves are not water-logged. It may be that you will need to dig your garden up very deeply and put some stone in the bottom. Over this the top soil should go. And on top, where the top soil once was, put a new layer of the rich soil you brought from the woods.

Before planting water the soil well. Then as you make places for the plants put into each hole some of the soil which belongs to the plant which is to be put there.

I think it would be a rather nice plan to have a wild-flower garden giving a succession of bloom from early spring to late fall; so let us start off with March, the hepatica, spring beauty and saxifrage. Then comes April bearing in its arms the beautiful columbine, the tiny bluets and wild geranium. For May there are the dog-tooth violet and the wood anemone, false Solomon’s seal, Jack-in-the-pulpit, wake robin, bloodroot and violets. June will give the bellflower, mullein, bee balm and foxglove. I would choose the gay butterfly weed for July. Let turtle head, aster, Joe Pye weed, and Queen Anne’s lace make the rest of the season brilliant until frost.

Let us have a bit about the likes and dislikes of these plants. After you are once started you’ll keep on adding to this wild-flower list.

There is no one who doesn’t love the hepatica. Before the spring has really decided to come, this little flower pokes its head up and puts all else to shame. Tucked under a covering of dry leaves the blossoms wait for a ray of warm sunshine to bring them out. These embryo flowers are further protected by a fuzzy covering. This reminds one of a similar protective covering which new fern leaves have. In the spring a hepatica plant wastes no time on getting a new suit of leaves. It makes its old ones do until the blossom has had its day. Then the new leaves, started to be sure before this, have a chance. These delayed, are ready to help out next season. You will find hepaticas growing in clusters, sort of family groups. They are likely to be found in rather open places in the woods. The soil is found to be rich and loose. So these should go only in partly shaded places and under good soil conditions. If planted with other woods specimens give them the benefit of a rather exposed position, that they may catch the early spring sunshine. I should cover hepaticas over with a light litter of leaves in the fall. During the last days of February, unless the weather is extreme take this leaf covering away. You’ll find the hepatica blossoms all ready to poke up their heads.

The spring beauty hardly allows the hepatica to get ahead of her. With a white flower which has dainty tracings of pink, a thin, wiry stem, and narrow, grass-like leaves, this spring flower cannot be mistaken. You will find spring beauties growing in great patches in rather open places. Plant a number of the roots and allow the sun good opportunity to get at them. For this plant loves the sun.

The other March flower mentioned is the saxifrage. This belongs in quite a different sort of environment. It is a plant which grows in dry and rocky places. Often one will find it in chinks of rock. There is an old tale to the effect that the saxifrage roots twine about rocks and work their way into them so that the rock itself splits. Anyway, it is a rock garden plant. I have found it in dry, sandy places right on the borders of a big rock. It has white flower clusters borne on hairy stems.

The columbine is another plant that is quite likely to be found in rocky places. Standing below a ledge and looking up, one sees nestled here and there in rocky crevices one plant or more of columbine. The nodding red heads bob on wiry, slender stems. The roots do not strike deeply into the soil; in fact, often the soil hardly covers them. Now, just because the columbine has little soil, it does not signify that it is indifferent to the soil conditions. For it always has lived, and always should live, under good drainage conditions. I wonder if it has struck you, how really hygienic plants are? Plenty of fresh air, proper drainage, and good food are fundamentals with plants.

It is evident from study of these plants how easy it is to find out what plants like. After studying their feelings, then do not make the mistake of huddling them all together under poor drainage conditions.

I always have a feeling of personal affection for the bluets. When they come I always feel that now things are beginning to settle down outdoors. They start with rich, lovely, little delicate blue blossoms. As June gets hotter and hotter their colour fades a bit, until at times they look quite worn and white. Some people call them Quaker ladies, others innocence. Under any name they are charming. They grow in colonies, sometimes in sunny fields, sometimes by the road-side. From this we learn that they are more particular about the open sunlight than about the soil.

If you desire a flower to pick and use for bouquets, then the wild geranium is not your flower. It droops very quickly after picking and almost immediately drops its petals. But the purplish flowers are showy, and the leaves, while rather coarse, are deeply cut. This latter effect gives a certain boldness to the plant that is rather attractive. The plant is found in rather moist, partly shaded portions of the woods. I like this plant in the garden. It adds good colour and permanent colour as long as blooming time lasts, since there is no object in picking it.

There are numbers and numbers of wild flowers I might have suggested. These I have mentioned were not given for the purpose of a flower guide, but with just one end in view your understanding of how to study soil conditions for the work of starting a wild-flower garden.

If you fear results, take but one or two flowers and study just what you select. Having mastered, or better, become acquainted with a few, add more another year to your garden. I think you will love your wild garden best of all before you are through with it. It is a real study, you see.

People use flowers for a number of reasons. They are sent to others when something great has happened in their life, as an expression of love, for encouragement, and also for sympathy. They are a way in which people let others know that they are thinking about them in both good times and in bad, but it is in the bad times when someone needs to know that they are supported, especially in a time of grief.

Flowers for sympathy

Flowers for sympathy are certainly not meant to take away the pain that comes during a grieving time. However, this gesture is a great way to let other family members and friends know that they are not alone in their grief; that they have always got someone by their side. It is an honorable gesture, a gesture of kindness, and one of respect. The act shows those grieving how the life of the deceased touched the life of the one sending the flowers.

The best sympathy flowers

The debate on what flowers are the best sympathy flowers has been ongoing for quite some time. Some may say lilies are the best while others say yellow roses are a great expression of sympathy. Many people have their preferences and their favorites. You’ve probably even sat in a funeral home, looking at all of the different flower arrangements and thought, “that is an interesting choice of flower.” It is not at all common to see flowers that do not look like the traditional funeral flower.

However, the flowers that seems to be favored and have proven to be an adequate choice for sympathy flowers is those flowers that are composed of many different colors. It is amazing how many buying flowers for sympathy do not think of the colors of the flowers. Then again, there are many who do. Even something as simple as picking out your favorite colors can be adequate.

What is ideal is buying flowers that were the favorite colors of the deceased, if that is known, and even finding out what their favorite flower was. If not known, pastels make a great choice and it is always safe to go with lilies and roses. A light pastel red makes a wonderful color of flower to show sympathy.

Real VS Artificial

The sender of the flowers usually makes the decision to use real or artificial flowers. Real flowers smell very sweet and give the grieving a comfortable feeling. However, the sender usually states that they want a particular arrangement to go to a specific person and may want the flowers to last them for a while once in their home. Many times these flowers may have a candle or another centerpiece included with them, which makes it ideal to choose artificial flowers.

If the sender knows if the person receiving the flowers likes real or artificial, that is a great way to solve that dilemma when buying sympathy flowers. The idea is to give the grieving individual something that can be enjoyed in their time of grief.

The perfect flowers

With this said, it is fair to say that the best sympathy flowers are going to be those that are colorful. The flowers should also be either a favorite flower of the deceased or the person receiving the arrangement. If not sure, then roses and lilies make a great choice. Whether or not to buy real flowers or artificial flowers depends on what you would like the recipient to use them for. If you want to provide an environment that is comfortable, then the sweet aroma of real flowers can be quite soothing.

Before taking up the garden vegetables individually, I shall outline the general practice of cultivation, which applies to all.

The purposes of cultivation are three to get rid of weeds, and to stimulate growth by (1) letting air into the soil and freeing unavailable plant food, and (2) by conserving moisture.

As to weeds, the gardener of any experience need not be told the importance of keeping his crops clean. He has learned from bitter and costly experience the price of letting them get anything resembling a start. He knows that one or two days’ growth, after they are well up, followed perhaps by a day or so of rain, may easily double or treble the work of cleaning a patch of onions or carrots, and that where weeds have attained any size they cannot be taken out of sowed crops without doing a great deal of injury. He also realizes, or should, that every day’s growth means just so much available plant food stolen from under the very roots of his legitimate crops.

Instead of letting the weeds get away with any plant food, he should be furnishing more, for clean and frequent cultivation will not only break the soil up mechanically, but let in air, moisture and heat all essential in effecting those chemical changes necessary to convert non- available into available plant food. Long before the science in the case was discovered, the soil cultivators had learned by observation the necessity of keeping the soil nicely loosened about their growing crops. Even the lanky and untutored aborigine saw to it that his squaw not only put a bad fish under the hill of maize but plied her shell hoe over it. Plants need to breathe. Their roots need air. You might as well expect to find the rosy glow of happiness on the wan cheeks of a cotton-mill child slave as to expect to see the luxuriant dark green of healthy plant life in a suffocated garden.

Important as the question of air is, that of water ranks beside it. You may not see at first what the matter of frequent cultivation has to do with water. But let us stop a moment and look into it. Take a strip of blotting paper, dip one end in water, and watch the moisture run up hill, soak up through the blotter. The scientists have labeled that “capillary attraction” the water crawls up little invisible tubes formed by the texture of the blotter. Now take a similar piece, cut it across, hold the two cut edges firmly together, and try it again. The moisture refuses to cross the line: the connection has been severed.

In the same way the water stored in the soil after a rain begins at once to escape again into the atmosphere. That on the surface evaporates first, and that which has soaked in begins to soak in through the soil to the surface. It is leaving your garden, through the millions of soil tubes, just as surely as if you had a two-inch pipe and a gasoline engine, pumping it into the gutter night and day! Save your garden by stopping the waste. It is the easiest thing in the world to do cut the pipe in two. By frequent cultivation of the surface soil not more than one or two inches deep for most small vegetables the soil tubes are kept broken, and a mulch of dust is maintained. Try to get over every part of your garden, especially where it is not shaded, once in every ten days or two weeks. Does that seem like too much work? You can push your wheel hoe through, and thus keep the dust mulch as a constant protection, as fast as you can walk. If you wait for the weeds, you will nearly have to crawl through, doing more or less harm by disturbing your growing plants, losing all the plant food (and they will take the cream) which they have consumed, and actually putting in more hours of infinitely more disagreeable work. If the beginner at gardening has not been convinced by the facts given, there is only one thing left to convince him experience.

Having given so much space to the reason for constant care in this matter, the question of methods naturally follows. Get a wheel hoe. The simplest sorts will not only save you an infinite amount of time and work, but do the work better, very much better than it can be done by hand. You can grow good vegetables, especially if your garden is a very small one, without one of these labor-savers, but I can assure you that you will never regret the small investment necessary to procure it.

With a wheel hoe, the work of preserving the soil mulch becomes very simple. If one has not a wheel hoe, for small areas very rapid work can be done with the scuffle hoe.

The matter of keeping weeds cleaned out of the rows and between the plants in the rows is not so quickly accomplished. Where hand-work is necessary, let it be done at once. Here are a few practical suggestions that will reduce this work to a minimum, (1) Get at this work while the ground is soft; as soon as the soil begins to dry out after a rain is the best time. Under such conditions the weeds will pull out by the roots, without breaking off. (2) Immediately before weeding, go over the rows with a wheel hoe, cutting shallow, but just as close as possible, leaving a narrow, plainly visible strip which must be hand- weeded. The best tool for this purpose is the double wheel hoe with disc attachment, or hoes for large plants. (3) See to it that not only the weeds are pulled but that every inch of soil surface is broken up. It is fully as important that the weeds just sprouting be destroyed, as that the larger ones be pulled up. One stroke of the weeder or the fingers will destroy a hundred weed seedlings in less time than one weed can be pulled out after it gets a good start. (4) Use one of the small hand-weeders until you become skilled with it. Not only may more work be done but the fingers will be saved unnecessary wear.

The skilful use of the wheel hoe can be acquired through practice only. The first thing to learn is that it is necessary to watch the wheels only: the blades, disc or rakes will take care of themselves.

The operation of “hilling” consists in drawing up the soil about the stems of growing plants, usually at the time of second or third hoeing. It used to be the practice to hill everything that could be hilled “up to the eyebrows,” but it has gradually been discarded for what is termed “level culture”; and you will readily see the reason, from what has been said about the escape of moisture from the surface of the soil; for of course the two upper sides of the hill, which may be represented by an equilateral triangle with one side horizontal, give more exposed surface than the level surface represented by the base. In wet soils or seasons hilling may be advisable, but very seldom otherwise. It has the additional disadvantage of making it difficult to maintain the soil mulch which is so desirable.

Rotation of crops. ——————

There is another thing to be considered in making each vegetable do its best, and that is crop rotation, or the following of any vegetable with a different sort at the next planting.

With some vegetables, such as cabbage, this is almost imperative, and practically all are helped by it. Even onions, which are popularly supposed to be the proving exception to the rule, are healthier, and do as well after some other crop, provided the soil is as finely pulverized and rich as a previous crop of onions would leave it.

Here are the fundamental rules of crop rotation:

(1) Crops of the same vegetable, or vegetables of the same family (such as turnips and cabbage) should not follow each other.

(2) Vegetables that feed near the surface, like corn, should follow deep-rooting crops.

(3) Vines or leaf crops should follow root crops.

(4) Quick-growing crops should follow those occupying the land all season.

These are the principles which should determine the rotations to be followed in individual cases. The proper way to attend to this matter is when making the planting plan. You will then have time to do it properly, and will need to give it no further thought for a year.

With the above suggestions in mind, and put to use , it will not be difficult to give the crops those special attentions which are needed to make them do their very best.

In deciding upon the site for the home vegetable garden it is well to dispose once and for all of the old idea that the garden “patch” must be an ugly spot in the home surroundings. If thoughtfully planned, carefully planted and thoroughly cared for, it may be made a beautiful and harmonious feature of the general scheme, lending a touch of comfortable homeliness that no shrubs, borders, or beds can ever produce.

With this fact in mind we will not feel restricted to any part of the premises merely because it is out of sight behind the barn or garage. In the average moderate-sized place there will not be much choice as to land. It will be necessary to take what is to be had and then do the very best that can be done with it. But there will probably be a good deal of choice as to, first, exposure, and second, convenience. Other things being equal, select a spot near at hand, easy of access. It may seem that a difference of only a few hundred yards will mean nothing, but if one is depending largely upon spare moments for working in and for watching the garden and in the growing of many vegetables the latter is almost as important as the former this matter of convenient access will be of much greater importance than is likely to be at first recognized. Not until you have had to make a dozen time-wasting trips for forgotten seeds or tools, or gotten your feet soaking wet by going out through the dew-drenched grass, will you realize fully what this may mean.

Exposure. ———

But the thing of first importance to consider in picking out the spot that is to yield you happiness and delicious vegetables all summer, or even for many years, is the exposure. Pick out the “earliest” spot you can find a plot sloping a little to the south or east, that seems to catch sunshine early and hold it late, and that seems to be out of the direct path of the chilling north and northeast winds. If a building, or even an old fence, protects it from this direction, your garden will be helped along wonderfully, for an early start is a great big factor toward success. If it is not already protected, a board fence, or a hedge of some low-growing shrubs or young evergreens, will add very greatly to its usefulness. The importance of having such a protection or shelter is altogether underestimated by the amateur.

The soil. ———

The chances are that you will not find a spot of ideal garden soil ready for use anywhere upon your place. But all except the very worst of soils can be brought up to a very high degree of productiveness especially such small areas as home vegetable gardens require. Large tracts of soil that are almost pure sand, and others so heavy and mucky that for centuries they lay uncultivated, have frequently been brought, in the course of only a few years, to where they yield annually tremendous crops on a commercial basis. So do not be discouraged about your soil. Proper treatment of it is much more important, and a garden- patch of average run-down, or “never-brought-up” soil will produce much more for the energetic and careful gardener than the richest spot will grow under average methods of cultivation.

The ideal garden soil is a “rich, sandy loam.” And the fact cannot be overemphasized that such soils usually are made, not found. Let us analyze that description a bit, for right here we come to the first of the four all-important factors of gardening food. The others are cultivation, moisture and temperature. “Rich” in the gardener’s vocabulary means full of plant food; more than that and this is a point of vital importance it means full of plant food ready to be used at once, all prepared and spread out on the garden table, or rather in it, where growing things can at once make use of it; or what we term, in one word, “available” plant food. Practically no soils in long- inhabited communities remain naturally rich enough to produce big crops. They are made rich, or kept rich, in two ways; first, by cultivation, which helps to change the raw plant food stored in the soil into available forms; and second, by manuring or adding plant food to the soil from outside sources.

“Sandy” in the sense here used, means a soil containing enough particles of sand so that water will pass through it without leaving it pasty and sticky a few days after a rain; “light” enough, as it is called, so that a handful, under ordinary conditions, will crumble and fall apart readily after being pressed in the hand. It is not necessary that the soil be sandy in appearance, but it should be friable.

“Loam: a rich, friable soil,” says Webster. That hardly covers it, but it does describe it. It is soil in which the sand and clay are in proper proportions, so that neither greatly predominate, and usually dark in color, from cultivation and enrichment. Such a soil, even to the untrained eye, just naturally looks as if it would grow things. It is remarkable how quickly the whole physical appearance of a piece of well cultivated ground will change. An instance came under my notice last fall in one of my fields, where a strip containing an acre had been two years in onions, and a little piece jutting off from the middle of this had been prepared for them just one season. The rest had not received any extra manuring or cultivation. When the field was plowed up in the fall, all three sections were as distinctly noticeable as though separated by a fence. And I know that next spring’s crop of rye, before it is plowed under, will show the lines of demarcation just as plainly.